


blood of my blood, bone of my bone

by demogorgns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Frenemies, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demogorgns/pseuds/demogorgns
Summary: “Sansa was the pretty one. He remembered a time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but that had only been a child's fancy.” – Reek I, A Dance With DragonsBut what if it wasn't?





	1. they say we are asleep, until we fall in love

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i'm writing this to cope, honestly.
> 
> O by the way i made the playlist i'm writing this to public if yall are into that: https://open.spotify.com/user/frankie.stein722/playlist/79Tf7Q1k6d6151XJezp2Ci?si=6r0NCoKIQ2uziG4tj1GYPQ

_“Sansa_ _was the pretty one. He remembered a time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but that had only been a child's fancy.”_ – Reek I, A Dance With Dragons

*

The great hall of Pyke was a long, cold, gloomy cavern of black stone, roof and walls carved with tentacles and teeth, resolving in the body of a great kraken carved over the lord’s seat at the head of the room. King Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Defender of the Faith, and Protector of the Realm, was seated with his leg hanging over the carved arm of the great chair of the Greyjoys, dressed in his black and gold armour, with his antlered greathelm cradled in the crook of his arm.

Gathered along the halls were all his knights, lords and men-at-arms, some still bloody and cut from the battle, but all talking and laughing joyfully, revelling in the victory they had just won; the hall rang with their voices. The King’s Hand, Jon Arryn, Lord of the Vale, stood at the king’s right hand, and his father-in-law, Lord Tywin Lannister, at his left. The remaining knights of the Kingsguard – Ser Barristan Selmy, Ser Mandon Moore, Ser Boros Blount, Ser Meryn Trant, Ser Preston Greenfield and Ser Jaime Lannister – were gathered in a semi-circle behind their king, all in scalded white plate still splashed with the scarlet blood of the enemies they had cut down not half a day before.

As Lord Eddard Stark approached down the long hall on foot with his Northern lords following, the king’s black-bearded face split into a white-toothed grin. He leapt up from the chair to embrace him, as the men in the hall trailed off into silence. Ned made to kneel, but the king held him up, laughing.

“Piss on that! Come here, we’ve won, straighten that frozen face!” He pulled Ned into a bone crushing hug. “Gods damn you, Ned, where did you run off too?”

“My men and I were securing Lady Alannys and her children, Your Grace, and ensuring they were gently treated.”

A brief moment of discomfort passed over King Robert’s face, as fleeting as a summer storm. “Ah, good, good,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “He’s dead, did you hear that? Maron, Greyjoy’s other boy. Crushed when the watchtower fell.” Several Westerlands lords along the wall spat at Maron Greyjoy’s name.

“I had heard, Your Grace,” Ned replied.

“Well, you’re here now, it’s time. Come on, stand next to me. Lord Tywin, tell them to bring him in.”

The cool green eyes of Lord Tywin Lannister, Warden of the West, alighted on the king. “As you say, Your Grace.” He nodded at the guards at the door.

They had bound Balon Greyjoy in chains to bring him before his king. The newly knighted Ser Jorah Mormont, of Bear Island, held one end of the chain at his left side, and Thoros of Myr, first through the breach at the final battle, held the chain on his right. Together, they led the Lord Reaper of Pyke down his own hall, past the solemn, triumphant, angry and hate-filled faces of the men who had defeated him; and forced him to his knees, before King Robert, Jon Arryn, Tywin Lannister, and Ned himself.

There was a moment of ugly silence. Robert would not speak first, but Greyjoy’s eyes when he looked up were so full of malice that Ned wondered that he even meant to surrender. _This is not over for Balon Greyjoy, not by a long shot._

Finally, Lord Balon spoke. “You have killed my eldest two sons,” he growled in a voice dripping with hate. “Pulled down my walls, broken my castle, defeated and captured my brothers. Very well. I surrender. Let this be an end to it.”

Lord Tywin looked sideways at the king, as did Jon Arryn. Robert’s face was guarded and dark. For a terrible moment, Ned wondered that Lord Tywin had not persuaded Robert to put every Greyjoy to the sword after all, as he had been arguing for half the day, but finally, Robert nodded.

“Swear fealty to me, then, and swear by all the gods you will never take up arms against House Baratheon again.”

“I swear it, by the old gods and the new,” Lord Balon said through gritted teeth. All this had been agreed before, that the Iron Islands would follow the law of mainland Westeros, that there would be no more reaving, that Lord Balon would never again disturb the King’s peace; penalties and hostages negotiated and agreed. This surrender was only a show, a matter of pomp and circumstance, nothing more.

Robert stood, and proffered a hand to help Lord Balon up.

“Rise, my lord. I welcome you back into the king’s peace.”

The lord’s solar was similarly dark and dank, with a round table and chairs made from grey driftwood. The sun was setting over the sea through the windows, spilling red and orange paint over the black canvas of the waves, and Ned could hear the sea-birds calling as they fled to their nests. _Would that I could do the same._ Soon, he would be able to return to Winterfell, to Cat and their babes, but the journey would be long, and for the moment his duty bound him to Pyke.

The king sat down with a sigh. “Alright, that’s done with. Lord Tywin will be showing me sour looks until he scuttles back under the Rock, and Cersei will never let me forget it, but I forgave them, gods damn it. I let them bend the knee. Now what?”

“First, we must decide on a new member of the Kingsguard,” Lord Arryn said gravely, taking his own seat. “Ser Alyn Payne died of his wounds a few hours past.”

Robert heaved a sigh. “I only named him because Cersei told me to. Damn the man, what was he thinking, getting in front of a crossbow bolt like that?”

“He died to save your life, Your Grace,” Ned reminded him gently. “The best end, for a knight of the Kingsguard.”

“Gods damn you, Ned, don’t you think I know that?” Robert shifted. Ned knew that beneath the bluster, the king felt guilty. “I can’t name a new man yet. Let the others stand vigil for Ser Alyn, and bury him. Then we’ll think about replacing him.”

“Then we have the matter of Lord Balon’s children,” Lord Arryn continued. “The girl will stay on Pyke, that’s fine, but Lord Balon did agree to give his last boy as hostage to his good behaviour,” Lord Arryn reminded his former wards. “King’s Landing may be the right place for him, keep him close, on hand should Lord Balon attempt any more treasons.”

“On hand, so the boy is easier to _execute?”_ Ned asked, his face twisting with disgust despite his efforts to hide his feelings. Lord Arryn quickly shook his head.

“No, no, but to make it seem more like we mean it…it will never come to that, gods willing, if Balon sees the threat is a serious one.”

“Seven hells, must I have the boy hanging round my neck all the time?” Robert groaned, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Cersei’s bitching will be enough to drive me half mad.”

“Raise him with your son, Your Grace, and you need never fear the Greyjoys again,” Lord Arryn argued respectfully. “The boys will grow into bosom friends, battle companions, and unbreakable allies, just as you and Eddard did.”

A smile twitched at Robert’s face at that, but then it dropped again. “You clearly haven’t spent much time with Joff,” he said darkly. “Only three, and already I hear he terrorises his nurses. Besides, the Greyjoy boy is nearly ten now; seems to me a bit late to raise them together.”

“My boy Robb is a little older,” Ned volunteered quietly. _The conversation would have come round to it soon enough._ “Only six, but still, he’s tall for his age, and growing every day. Perhaps he would make a better companion for the Greyjoy boy.” _And Jon, too, I suppose. They are all nearly of an age._

The king seized on the new suggestion, as Ned had known he would. “Perfect! That’s perfect, Ned! I know I can trust you to keep the Greyjoys in line.”

So when Lord Eddard Stark boarded ship back to Westeros, it was with a skinny, dark-haired boy of ten with big, frightened grey eyes in one of his cabins. The boy had tears in his eyes when they took him away from his weeping, grief-stricken mother and silent, shivering sister; though to his credit he had not let them fall - at least, not where Ned could see them. He went below as soon as they got him aboard, pale and red-eyed in his black tunic with the golden kraken embroidered on the chest. Ned had sent a raven ahead, to tell Catelyn of their coming – she would have a warm welcome ready for the lad, and Robb and Jon would have been told to make him their friend. _And, gods willing, it will work. They will grow up to love and respect each other, as I love and respect Robert, and no discord will come between them._

It was a different kind of love that weighed on Ned’s mind the most, though. It had been Lord Arryn’s suggestion; he felt that the best way to ensure an alliance lasted the course was marriage. Several girls were suggested; Lannister cousins, all. Ned had misliked that, as he had misliked every Lannister appointment since Robert wrapped a Baratheon cloak around Cersei Lannister’s shoulders three years prior. Instead, with a heavy heart, he suggested his own daughter to match with the heir to the Iron Islands.

Sansa was three, and already a proper little lady; with hair like flame and sea blue eyes, she would grow into as great a beauty as Ned’s beloved Catelyn. She was Ned’s pride and joy. It hurt to even think of her leaving him, some day in the distant future, hurt to think of his pretty, merry little girl grown into a woman and sent far away from him; but think of it, he must. _Cat will not like it._ Since the day Sansa had been born, Cat had made jokes of arranging marriages to every highborn lad in the Seven Kingdoms, and Ned knew some of them were more serious suggestions than that. Cat wanted a crown prince for her little girl, the heir to Highgarden, or perhaps a prince of Dorne – not the heir to a kingdom that was little more than a collection of rocks in the sea. And Ned…all he wanted was to see Sansa happy, wed to a man who was worthy of her, one day. _But there’s no reason why the Greyjoy boy could not become that man, if we raise him well._

Besides, Ned had promised his king he would do everything in his power to keep the Greyjoys loyal; and Ned Stark always kept his promises.

It was a month later when they finally, _finally_ saw the walls of Winterfell on the horizon. Ned’s spirit lifted to see the great monolith of grey stone, the ancient square watchtowers, capped with summer snow, and the winter town below, near deserted now as spring had turned to summer while Ned had been away. He glanced at the Greyjoy boy, mounted on a grey pony, as they rode through the massive East Gate. The boy looked pale with nerves, grey eyes big as saucers as he took the castle in.

House Stark was gathered in the inner yard, just beyond the gate – Lady Catelyn, in blue velvet lined with grey fur, one arm around young Robb, and the other around little Sansa, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet, her round little face flushed in the cool summer air. Jon Snow lingered behind them, craning his neck a little, no doubt wanting to catch a glimpse of the Greyjoy lad.

“Daddy!” Sansa squealed breathlessly as Ned swung down from his horse, unable to contain herself any longer. “Daddy, Daddy, you’re home!” She squirmed out of her mother’s grasp and ran to her father, who crouched down to catch her in his arms, and swing her up. She screamed with delight, and then buried her face in his neck as he turned to Catelyn and Robb.

“Hello, little love,” he murmured to Sansa, smiling over her shoulder at his wife and son.

Catelyn was a true lady, reserved and demure. She wanted to run to Ned as Sansa had and hold him close, but instead she curtseyed to her lord husband before she kissed him on the cheek. “Welcome home, my love,” she whispered in his ear, so Maester Luwin and the others assembled in the yard could not hear her. Beyond them, the men of Winterfell were marching back through their gate, back into the arms of their wives and children. Widows were weeping, children laughing or crying, sisters and daughters and mothers all smiling with relief or searching for signs of their missing menfolk in the crowd.

“Father!” Robb left his mother’s arms to run to his father as well, tugging at his cloak. “Was the war exciting? Did you fight in the siege?”

“I’ll tell you tonight, at the feast,” Ned smiled, leaning down to ruffle his heir’s auburn curls. “I see you did an excellent job of ruling while I was away!”

Robb puffed up with pride at that, and Catelyn stifled a laugh. He looked so solemn and proud, even at only six years old. “Thank you, Father! I remembered what you said when you left, that with you away I was the Stark in Winterfell, and I had to be in charge. I helped Mother and Maester Luwin all the time, I did!”

Catelyn did laugh then. “That you did, my love. We couldn’t have managed without you.”

“Were there lots of knights, Daddy?” Sansa asked prettily, still cradled in Ned’s arm, her arms around his neck. “Did they have pretty armour and horses? Were they val – val –” She struggled for a moment with the word.

“Valiant?” Ned prompted.

Sansa beamed. “Yes! Valri-ant!”

Ned chuckled. “They certainly were, sweetling.” He set her down gently, and held her hand.

Theon Greyjoy watched all of this with wary eyes. The castle was bigger than any he’d ever seen, so big his breath had caught in his throat when he saw it appear over the horizon. It seemed to have grown from the very earth, like a massive tree, rooted in the ground, unbreakable, standing tall from the beginning of time to its very end. The solemn stone was as grey and cold as the eyes of its lord, who seemed to Theon a giant, cold and frozen like a great stone statue. Lord Stark had been kind to him so far, that much was true, and Theon had tried very hard to be brave, like Lord Stark had told him he should be. But every time he thought about his mother’s wails, or Asha’s stony silence, he wanted to weep. _Greyjoys don’t cry. They don’t. Maron and Rodrik never cried, not even when they_ died, _I bet,_ _so I can’t either._

He had to fight his tears all the harder as he watched Lord Stark greet his family, though. The little girl with the red hair was as different from Theon’s sister as it was possible to be, but she reminded him of home all the same, or rather she reminded him that _his_ sister had never once ran into _his_ father’s arms like that, and nor had Lord Balon ever held his children like that, or kissed his wife Lady Alannys with such love. There was a stone in Theon’s throat as he watched them, so he looked away, and caught sight of the tall, long-faced, solemn boy standing behind Lady Stark. Theon caught his eye, and the boy twitched his face into a small smile; Theon returned it. _Lord Stark’s bastard son, probably. He looks as lonely as I feel._

Lord Stark turned to Theon, who suddenly wanted to jump back on the grey pony they had given him and ride hard back to the coast. _I would swim home if I could._

“Theon, step forward, my lad.” Theon did as he was bid, heart hammering.

“This is my lady wife, Catelyn, of House Tully,” Lord Stark said, as his wife smiled warmly at Theon. Unsure of himself, he tried to smile back. “My son and heir, Robb.” The red-haired boy seemed a thousand times more confident than Theon, and was nearly of a height with him despite being two years his junior. He grinned, and waved merrily. “And finally, my daughter, Lady Sansa.” Little Lady Sansa blushed prettily, and ducked a delicate little curtsey to Theon, then went giggling to hide behind her mother’s skirts.

“We want you to be welcome here, Theon,” Lady Catelyn said gently, coming forward to speak to him. “I know you must be frightened, after all that you have suffered, and having left your home and your own mother and sister. But I want you to treat Winterfell as your home, now, and Robb and Sansa as your brother and sister.”

Behind Theon, Ned frowned at Cat, but the boy did not see.

At the feast that night, Theon was given pride of place on the dais, with Lord Eddard’s own children, but he would have given his right hand to be anywhere else. The bastard boy, Jon Snow, was sent to the back of the hall, and Theon wished he were with him, far away from all the strange eyes on him, hidden away in the shadows and smoke.

Robb Stark was at his right, and little Sansa at his left, giggling and kicking her legs. She smiled whenever she caught Theon’s eye. Robb talked constantly, of what horses they had in the stables and what the hunting was like in the woods, and how glad he was that he and Jon had another boy to train with at last; everything, but not why Theon was in Winterfell in the first place, not his father’s rebellion or the deaths of his brothers. Theon could sense the younger boy was itching to ask about it all, and he wished that he _would_ , just to get it over with.

“We’ll be like brothers, just like Father said –”

“I had brothers,” Theon cut him off moodily. “ _Real_ brothers. But they’re dead now. Your father and his friends killed them.”

“I – I know,” the Stark boy said, blushing as red as his hair. “I just – well, you’re here now, and it could be fun – it _will_ be fun, living here, Ser Rodrik is going to let us fight with real tourney swords soon and –”

“My brothers fought with _real_ swords, with sharp edges,” Theon said, desperately trying to fight the tears in his voice. _Drowned God, let me not cry in front of Stark._ “It didn’t help them any.” He wasn’t even really crying for Rodrik and Maron, not really; they were a lot older than him, and cruel besides; Maron was always lying and making fun of Theon, and Rodrik would hit him. It was almost a relief to know they were gone, and he would never have to go in fear of them again. It was his mother he cried for, the way she screamed and tore her hair when they told her Roddy and Maron were dead, and how she wept when they took Theon away. The stone was in his throat again, and he could feel the mortifying wetness on his cheeks. Red-faced, and furious, he pushed his chair back and ran from the hall without looking back.

The corridor was blessedly cool and quiet after the noise and heat of the great hall. Theon pressed his face to the cold stone, and sobbed roughly, hot tears spilling down his burning cheeks and trickling under his collar and down his chest. _I want Asha,_ he thought desperately, childishly. _I want Mother, I want home. I want home. I want home!_

“Theon?”

A high, girlish voice. Theon swallowed and looked around, rubbing the tears from his face and eyes fiercely. “What?” he asked, more harshly than he intended. Little Sansa looked startled at his anger, but not cowed.

“Are you alright?” she asked, stepping a little closer. “Do you miss your mummy? I missed Daddy, when he went away, but he’s back now. I bet you’ll get to see your mummy soon, too. I could ask Daddy if we could all go see her, I know he’d say yes if _I_ asked. There, don’t cry.” She leaned up on her tiptoes to pat him clumsily on the shoulder.

 _I will never see my mother again,_ Theon thought. _Your father will certainly never take me back to Pyke, nor you._ But he didn’t say that. She was only three, and trying to be kind. She leaned over too far, and stumbled into his shoulder, and Theon laughed even through his tears.

“Careful, little one.” He steadied her, holding her by the shoulders and setting her back on her feet. There was a moment when they both just looked at each other, and then they both began to giggle.

“Are you going to come finish your food?” she asked, blinking sweetly up at him with her big, innocent blue eyes. “You’ll miss the lemon cakes if not.” She frowned at that. “You can’t miss the _lemon cakes._ They’re the bestest thing to eat in the whole _world.”_ She took his hand in her little, pudgy one and dragged him with surprising strength back to the hall. To his credit, Robb Stark made no comment at Theon’s outburst, only handed him a lemon cake and grinned at him, and resumed talking about Winterfell. Theon sat between the Stark siblings, feeling the deadweight in his chest slowly but surely melt away.

*

In time, Theon came to realise that Robb Stark and Jon Snow were more than adequate replacements for his dead brothers. They never made fun of him, not in a way that was cruel at least, they never hurt him deliberately, they didn’t lie to get him into trouble or spit in his food or trick him. Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn were a little distant, but kind, and he was never beaten for things he didn’t do, or made to lie in freezing water as a punishment, or starved. And Sansa…well, she wasn’t Asha, that was for sure. Theon hadn’t hated his sister, not like he had hated Rodrik and Maron, but they hadn’t been close, either. Asha was angry a lot, defensive, and scornful of Theon, or any boy she deemed weak or foolish, which was all boys. Sansa, in contrast, was all sweetness, easy to laugh and easy to love. It would have been a simple thing to tease and torment her, she was so gentle and scared of so many things, but Theon never wanted to. She was too good – there would have been no joy in it.

Over the years, Theon got three more honorary siblings, wild little Arya, sweet laughing Bran, and baby Rickon. Theon would always see Rickon as the baby, even when Ser Rodrik placed a sword in his hand when he was ten and Theon six-and-twenty. Robb, Jon and Sansa would always be his favourites, though, his closest companions, his best friends. Theon, Robb and Jon grew to manhood together, and although Theon was older than them by several years, there was never any distance between them. No matter how old they got, nothing ever changed between them. It was not like that with Sansa, though.

Until he was four-and-twenty, he could only see her as his little sister. How else? She was always a pretty child, that much was true, but a child all the same. When she was little they would all four play games together, Sansa always pestering Theon and Robb and Jon to play knights and monsters and kings to her perpetually imperilled princess. But the older she got the less Theon saw of her; Lady Catelyn sequestered her in the library or the solar with her septa more and more as she grew up, learning to sew and play the high harp and the bells. Arya was always in the yard, underfoot, running around trying to keep up with her brothers, but Sansa only watched them from the window, and waved when Theon smiled at her. She always remembered to save him a lemon cake at dinner, though. Arya despaired of her, complaining constantly that she had once been fun, but now only thought of dresses and hairpins and princes and jewels; and Theon supposed her complaints coloured his own opinion of Sansa over the years, until he began to see her as silly and vapid as well.

The year their betrothal was announced, though, Theon began to see her differently. He couldn’t say what started it, only that one day she was just Sansa, silly, girly, air-headed; and then she wasn’t. She was seventeen, and it was her nameday feast.

Every highborn lad in the North was staring at her that night. Perhaps that was it; Theon simply noticed the other men looking, so started looking himself. She was dressed in blue silk, slashed to show a snow white silk lining and embellished with Myrish lace; a lighter and more confectionary gown than Theon could ever remember seeing her in. It lit up her sea-blue eyes and brightened her red hair, brushed to a sheen. When she came into the hall on her father’s arm, a soft, shy smile was playing on her lips, and Theon could not take his eyes off her.

 _Is that Sansa? Our Sansa? No, that cannot be. Our Sansa is just a silly little girl, and this is a woman grown, and beautiful._ He felt his face grow hot.

The feast was a blur. Theon had eyes only for Sansa, trying to work out when she had stopped being a girl and started being… _that._ It didn’t feel right, to think of her like that, but at the same time he couldn’t help it. Every boy in the room fell over themselves and each other to ask her to dance when the time came, but Theon stayed leaning against the wall in a dark corner, listening to Jon speak without taking in a word. When Sansa came over to him, after she danced with Cley Cerwyn, Theon felt ten years old again, desperate to leave the hall, take a horse to the coast and sail far away.

“Theon! Are you not going to dance with me?”

Theon shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant, and praying she could not see his blushes. “I’m not in the mood tonight.”

She frowned at him. “It’s my _nameday._ Don’t be an ass.”

 _She would never call Cley Cerwyn an ass. She’d be all sweetness and charm with him. She doesn’t see me that way, I’m just her brother she can tease and insult all she likes._ Theon wanted to shake himself. Since when did he analyse Sansa’s words like that? Why had things all of a sudden changed like that?

Beside him, Jon laughed. “Good for you, Sansa. Tell him.” He aimed a light kick at Theon’s shin. “Go on, dance with her, you ass.”

Theon groaned in an exaggerated performance of reluctance. “Fine. Since it is your nameday.” He smiled at her, to show he was only teasing, and felt himself blush again when she beamed back.

“And you next, Jon, yes?” she smiled at her half-brother. He shook his head.

“You don’t want to dance with me, sweet sister.” _You don’t want to dance with the bastard, he means,_ Theon thought to himself as he led Sansa to the dancefloor.

At seven-and-ten, Sansa was at the height of her eligibility as a bride, yet there had not yet been any serious discussion of a betrothal before now. Theon had paid it no mind before, but now it was all he could think of. When she was eleven there had been rumours of an engagement between her and the then-crown prince, Joffrey Baratheon, ravens coming and going from Winterfell to King’s Landing, but the whispers had died when Prince Joffrey did, falling from his horse while on a hunt aged only three-and-ten. Since then, there had been no talk of it, and Sansa had stayed in Winterfell, growing more and more lovely with every passing year.

Theon considered all this as he watched her move on the dancefloor, back straight, head and arms perfectly poised, swirling with incredible grace between the lines of couples. He lost track of his own place in the dance a dozen times, gazing at her. When they came together again, he could smell the lemon-blossom fragrance she wore. _This won’t do. Think of Kyra, or Bess. Forget Sansa, she’ll never be yours._ But after a while, Theon could see nothing but blue – blue silk, blue eyes. When the dance was over, he was dizzy, and not from all the damned spinning around.

Ned watched his daughter dancing with his ward with perpetually solemn grey eyes. Cat leaned in to whisper to lord husband.

“What ever is the matter, love? You are not usually _this_ quiet.” Her tone was light, but beneath it was anxiety.

“We should discuss something, after this is over,” Ned replied heavily. “We should discuss Sansa. And Theon.”

Lord Eddard Stark passed a weary hand over his face as he sat in his solar, bathed in the candlelight, and the light from the huge summer moon outside the window. His wife, Lady Catelyn, turned to him with a desperate expression from where she stood, hand on the carved fireplace.

“Really, Ned? Theon Greyjoy?”

“It’s past time, Cat. We agreed, when he came here, you said –”

“I _said_ if no better match could be found.”

“There is no better match.”

“There are _hundreds!_ Young Prince Tommen is yet unwed, Ser Loras Tyrell, the youngest Martell prince –”

“Martell? What possible strategic advantage would be gained from sending Sansa to _Dorne_?”

Catelyn shook her head in frustration. “I only meant to show that there are _options,_ Ned. Why not wed her to one of your bannermen? Cley Cerwyn is of an age with Sansa – or there are the Riverlands, Lord Blackwood has a son –”

“ _Cat._ Please, my love. You know Sansa can wed none of those. We must bind the Iron Islands to the realm. After Pyke, I swore to King Robert I would do everything in my power to ensure the Greyjoys never attempted anything of the like again. _Everything_ in my power, Cat.”

“But really, to give Sansa over to the Greyjoys – Ned, she’s so gentle. So soft-hearted. She won’t _survive_ on Pyke.”

“Theon is a good lad, you know he is. We’ve done everything we could to ensure that. He’ll protect her. And I think you underestimate Sansa.” Ned smiled at his lady wife. “After all, she is her mother’s daughter. I seem to remember some talk of how this young, red-haired Southron lass would never survive her first Northern winter, yet here you stand.”

Cat smiled as well, though she also rolled her sky-blue eyes. “True.” Her smile slipped once again, into wistful longing. “I suppose I only wanted to keep her with me, for a little while longer. But she is seven-and-ten. You’re right. It’s past time.”

“We raised them both for this,” Ned reminded her softly. “Her and Theon both. Together, they will bind the Iron Islands to the Seven Kingdoms, for good and all. That is a great task for Sansa, and one I know she will rise to.”

Sansa Stark sat before the old, age-spotted dressing glass in the room she shared with her fifteen year old sister, Arya. She luxuriated in the feeling of being freshly bathed, clean and soft, in her fresh sleeping shift, and dug her bare toes into the soft sheepskin rug beneath the dressing table. In the mirror, she could see Arya, filled with frantic energy even in the hour before bed, thrusting and parrying an imaginary enemy with a ‘borrowed’ tourney sword. The fire crackled warmly in the gate, the candles flickered softly, and all was right with Sansa’s world. _How sweet it is to have such a home._ The music from her nameday feast was still ringing in her head, and her cheeks were still burning from what little wine she had been allowed to drink. Behind her, Beth Cassel picked up the bone-handled hairbrush from the dressing table, but before she could stroke it through Sansa’s auburn hair, there came a knock on the door.

“Come in!” Arya sang, but when she saw her mother come into the room she blushed bright red and quickly threw the tourney sword under the bed. Lady Catelyn pretended not to see.

“Good evening, lady mother,” Sansa said, turning and standing to curtsey to her mother. Arya did the same, albeit slightly more awkwardly than her older sister, as did Beth Cassel.

“Good evening, my girls. Beth, would you leave us? I’ll put Lady Arya and Lady Sansa to bed tonight.”

Beth nodded. “Of course, Lady Stark.” Catelyn waited until she had left to relax her stance and smile warmly at her daughters. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, girls,” she said, wrapping an arm around Arya as she moved to embrace her mother. “I only wished to brush your hair for you, Sansa, as I did when you were a girl.”

“You haven’t done that in years, Mother,” Sansa smiled.

“You _never_ brush _my_ hair,” Arya teased, making her mother laugh.

“No, because you squirmed like a wildcat every time I tried,” she reminded her younger daughter, who giggled. Sansa sat back at the dressing table, and Lady Catelyn took up the hairbrush.

Sansa’s hair glittered in the candlelight, a thousand different shades of autumn, chocolate, gold, and flame. It was as soft and thick as cream in Catelyn’s hand as she drew the hairbrush through it, over and over again. Her throat ached with tears she would not let herself shed. _Time enough for that later. Now is not the moment._ But who would brush Sansa’s hair on Pyke? Who would give her advice when she needed it, dry her tears when she cried, celebrate with her when she triumphed? Mad Alannys Harlaw? Asha Greyjoy, rumoured to be half a man and half a kraken? _How can I send my baby girl to live among such?_ But when Catelyn looked at her daughter in the glass, she could no longer deny that she was a baby no more, but a beautiful woman. It made her heart ache, with pride, and with grief.

“Mother? Are you well?” Catelyn looked at her daughter’s anxious face in the glass.

“I am perfectly well, my love,” she replied, swallowing her tears with a smile. She turned to her younger daughter, who was scooping up some discarded shifts and shoving them into an oak chest. “Arya, sweetling, would you give me a moment alone with your sister?”

“Alright,” Arya shrugged, heading into the little sitting room the girls shared. Sansa frowned at her mother in the mirror.

“What’s wrong, mother?” _She is so intuitive._

“I have something to tell you, my love.” Her heart was in her throat. “You’re a woman, grown and flowered, and have been for some time, and your father and I agree it is past time you were wed.”

Sansa’s face split into a cautious smile, and she turned in her seat to look at her mother properly. “Have you made me a match already?”

“You have always had a match, Sansa.”

Her pretty face clouded with confusion. “I have? Who?”

Catelyn sighed. “Theon.”

Sansa frowned, and then giggled a little, as if she believed it were a jape. “No, Mother. Theon is – a brother – he’s like a brother – no, I could never marry –” She studied her mother’s face, and saw the truth there. Her cheeks reddened. “Oh,” she said finally, in a small voice.

“Does that displease you?” Catelyn asked.

“Well – no. I suppose not. I just never thought – are you _sure_?” She sounded so like Arya in tone of voice then that Catelyn had to laugh.

“Yes, my love, I’m sure. Your father has been pondering the matter for…some time. We both agree. It is time the betrothal was announced.”

In his solar, Ned had just finished a similar conversation with Theon. He left the room, and stumbled down the stairs and into the yard.

The moon was huge, in a clear black sky scattered with stars. Theon stared up at it, and thought about her; blushing and giggling at him when they met all those years ago; peeking around his back as he pretended to defend her from the monster, Jon, with a tree-branch sword; singing at last year’s harvest feast, her voice clear and high and sweet. The world was spinning again. _Sansa. They always intended her to be mine, always, from the day Lord Eddard took me as his ward._ Did she know? Did she know when she asked him to dance that night?

He could picture their wedding; the heart tree, the steam rising from the hot pools, Sansa all in white and grey with her hair aflame. _No._ For a moment, he had forgotten completely. It would not be like that. He would have to take her home to Pyke, and wed her in the icy sea, like every Greyjoy for hundreds of years. _A Greyjoy cannot wed a girl from the mainland, not truly, not as a rock wife. She would only be a salt wife, she is not Ironborn. Father will never allow it._ Theon felt sick. _It will never be. And even if it does come to pass…could she love me?_ He was usually so confident with girls – with the girls from the village, and the brothels, it was easy to be. Sansa was not like them. They had known each other too long, there was too much history – she had seen him weeping for his mother, and falling from his horse, and knocked on his ass by Jon in the yard. And, and, and. Over ten years, Theon Greyjoy had lived in Winterfell, and yet in that moment he was ten again, an outsider, and alone.

The cold stars glittered above him like cruel, white eyes. Cursing himself, Theon turned and went back inside.


	2. for fear that you find out how i'm imagining you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (so many fucking blushes in the chapter holy jesus)
> 
> OKAY SO...WOW. i was not expecting a big response after only one chapter, so thank you so much to everyone who commented/left kudos/bookmarked/read so far! hope you enjoy this chapter!

Arya slept beside her, mumbling a little into her pillow and kicking a little as she always did. Sansa did not mind so much tonight; she would get no sleep, no matter if her little sister thrashed around and talked or no. She lay on her back, staring at the canopy of the big bed she had shared with Arya since they were girls.

_Theon. They had me matched with Theon, all this time._ It was so odd to think about – like the day Sansa lost her first tooth, and could not stop from probing the hole with her tongue. A thousand thoughts whirled through her head. _I’ll have to live on Pyke,_ she realised, and with that realisation came an image of an island, bathed in sunlight and set in sparkling azure waters, with a beautiful castle overlooking the calm sea. _But Maester Luwin said the Iron Islands were a cold climate, and harsh. And Pyke isn’t one castle, its several, all held together by bridges with the sea thrashing below._ She pushed that thought aside hastily.

_It_ will _be beautiful,_ she thought to herself firmly, _and I_ will _be happy._ If her father had planned this match for her, what else could she be but happy? Sansa stopped thinking of Pyke and instead imagined her wedding gown, white and grey of course, and it would have to be velvet and fur, not silk, since the wedding would be out of doors in the godswood… _But don’t they have different traditions on the Iron Islands? No, never mind, don’t think of that now…_ She would have a whole new wardrobe made up, all brides did, and Mother might give her new jewels, since as a woman and a wife she should have her own. When she tried to imagine what the ceremony would actually be _like,_ though, by necessity she had to picture Theon’s face, which brought a sick swirl of nerves to her stomach.

_Theon._ They had been so close as children, but lately Sansa could not remember having a conversation with him lasting more than five minutes. He was always smiling these days, a slightly mocking smile that made Sansa a little uncomfortable, and he seemed so _angry_ sometimes, always on the outside of things; like at her nameday feast, when he spent half the night in a corner, smirking in that way he did and laughing, next to a sullen and silent Jon Snow. And the girls…Sansa was seven-and-ten, and no longer so innocent that she hadn’t heard and understood the chatter in the yard, of broken hearts and village girls taking moon tea; things a lady like Sansa should never think about, but now could not seem to stop herself from doing so.

Sansa shook her head silently. _What a thing to think!_ she mentally scolded herself. _He is to be your lord husband, you shouldn’t think of him like that. If Father and Mother think him fit to wed you, then he is, and it’s not your place to question it._ At least he was handsome, with his sharp angled cheekbones, dark hair and grey eyes. _It won’t be hard to kiss him, or…the other thing. No, that won’t be hard at all._ Still, her doubts lingered, and dawn found her still awake, eyes aching, as Arya stirred and groaned and rubbed her eyes beside her.

She was silent as they washed and dressed, hardly thinking about her choice of gown and missing several buttons as she did up the sleeves. Arya frowned at her, and Beth clucked her tongue and went to fix it. Sansa was silent at breakfast too, pushing her scrambled eggs around her plate with a moody expression more suited to her sister or half-brother than herself. Finally, Arya could take it no longer. She leaned over table, so Bran, Rickon, Robb and their parents could not hear her.

“What in the name of all the gods is the matter with you?”

Sansa started. “What?”

Arya shook her head, bemused. “ _What,_ she says. Not very ladylike of you, _Lady_ Sansa. I _said,_ what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” Sansa said, trying to act nonchalant. She had always been a terrible liar.

“You only spent five minutes choosing a gown today, Sansa. I’m not stupid. Something is wrong,” Arya said firmly, still smiling.

Sansa’s brow furrowed as she pursed her lips. _Oh, gods,_ Arya thought, _it’s that serious, is it?_

“I’ll tell you after breakfast,” Sansa whispered to her younger sister. Arya nodded, still vaguely bemused by all the drama and secrecy. _She probably just broke a nail on her high harp again,_ she thought, stifling a giggle.

But when Sansa told her secret twenty minutes later, in the covered bridge that led to the armoury, Arya was aghast.

“ _Married?_ To _Theon?_ ”

“Arya! Don’t say it like that!”

“But he’s like – our brother! And he never takes anything seriously, and he’s so _grumpy_ these days, he never lets me mess around with his longbow anymore or take me riding – you _can’t_ marry him, I’ll tell Father that, I won’t let you –”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “Don’t be _stupid,_ Arya, you can’t do anything to stop it.” There was an ache in her throat all of a sudden, and her eyes were filling. She swallowed. “And don’t – don’t talk about Theon like that. He’s to be my husband. You shouldn’t disrespect him.”

“But Sansa, he’s so _old._ ”

Sansa laughed then, the threat of tears instantly gone. “He’s _four-and-twenty,_ Arya! That’s not old!” She dissolved into giggles, and Arya also began to chuckle a little. Sansa’s laughter was always infectious.

“Alright, maybe not _old._ But he’s not – I don’t know. He’s not _like_ you. You barely talk to each other, not anymore.”

Sansa pondered that as she sat in the solar with Septa Mordane and Arya later that morning, her sewing hanging limply from her hand. At breakfast, her father had announced another feast to be held a week from then, but nothing more explicit had been said about Sansa and Theon’s engagement, and Theon himself had been nowhere to be seen. Sansa wanted to find him and speak to him, at least to acknowledge that they both knew of the engagement and to clear the air a little, but instead she was locked in the solar for another hour, at least. For the first time in her life she found herself frustrated with her lessons, and bored with her usual pursuit of the womanly arts. A fact which had not escaped her septa’s notice.

“Sansa, dear! Whatever is the matter with you this morning? You’re usually so diligent,” Septa Mordane shook her head, standing and coming over to the window seat where Sansa was sat. Arya looked up from her own messy work and grinned, winking, at her sister. Sansa sighed.

Septa Mordane sat on the window seat as well. “Come, child, let’s have a look at those stitches.” Sansa obediently handed over her circle. Her septa tutted. “Dear me, dear me….child, are you ill? This work is not like you at all,” she frowned, leaning over as if to check Sansa’s temperature. Sansa merely shrugged.

“I’m sorry, Septa. I didn’t get much sleep last night.” Beyond the window, Sansa could see the inner yard. Robb and Jon were training, as they did every day, drilling constantly. There had lately been reports from the Wall of wildling attacks, and an army gathering in the wilds beyond the Wall, and Sansa’s lord father had ordered every man in the castle to prepare for the worst. The sight of her brothers in mail and leather, the sound of swords clashing drifting in through the window, set her teeth on edge.

Bran came into Sansa’s view, laughing and shaking his head as he buckled on his breastplate. When Sansa saw Theon following him, ruffling her little brother’s hair, and laughing as well, her stomach flipped unpleasantly.

“Could we watch the training instead?” she asked Septa Mordane quickly. Both the septa and Arya stared at Sansa in disbelief.

Arya recovered first, eager as always to stop sewing and get in on the action in the yard. “Could we?” she begged, jumping to her feet.

Septa Mordane glanced from sister to sister in confusion. “I – well –”

“ _Please,”_ Sansa asked, setting her needle down. “I really don’t feel I can concentrate this morning. A little rest, and I might be able to work better.”

Arya widened her eyes in supplication. Septa Mordane sighed, and smiled fondly at her charges.

“Come on, then.”

The ring of the swords was louder outside. A cool wind was whipping the clouds in the sky. It was the clearest the weather had been for years, winter finally giving way to spring, though the girls and their septa still had to wrap in fur and wool to keep the cold off as they stood in the shelter of the covered gallery.

Arya leaned over the railing, calling down to Jon and Robb and Bran. Rickon was lingering off to the side, clearly desperate to join his brothers, but still a few years shy of the day he could take up a sword. Theon handed him a bow, a smaller copy of his own, and Sansa strained to hear what they said to each other over the howl of the wind.

Rickon struggled to notch the arrow in the wind, and when he let fly at last it went wide of the mark, burying itself in a barrel beside the target. Bran, who was watching, howled with laughter, along with Arya, but Sansa just smiled.

“Never mind, Rickon,” she called down to him. “It’s just the wind.”

Theon looked up at the sound of her voice, and Sansa felt a thrill of nerves go through her. He didn’t smile or frown, just nodded, and turned back to Rickon.

“She’s right,” he said to the boy, a hand on his shoulder. “The wind caught it. Next time, think about that when you aim – which way is the wind going, and where will it blow the arrow when I let fly? Then take that into account – like this.” He unslung his own bow, nocked, aimed a little to the right of the target, and let fly. The wind blew the arrow slightly left, straight into the target. Rickon grinned, understanding, and when Arya cheered Sansa felt she had to clap too. When Theon looked up at her and smiled, she felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

They watched Robb, Jon and Theon instruct the boys for a while longer. Septa Mordane grew bored quickly, and cold, and headed back inside with strict instructions that Sansa and Arya were to spend no more than an hour outside; which Sansa knew Arya would ignore. Soon Arya had gone down to the yard herself, and left Sansa alone in the gallery.

The sun was dipping back towards the earth, and Sansa was just thinking of going back in to find something to eat, when Theon appeared at the end of the gallery. She immediately looked away from him, avoiding eye contact, and felt the heat creep into her cheeks again.

“Sansa.”

“Theon.” A moment of quiet. Sansa gathered her courtesies. “I – I’m sorry. About last night.”

Theon smiled a little. “What about last night?”

Her cheeks were aflame. _I shouldn’t blush, it doesn’t go with my hair._ “I shouldn’t have – said what I did. When you wouldn’t dance with me.”

Despite himself, Theon laughed a little – not unkindly, but he couldn’t help it. “You mean, when you called me an ass?” Sansa did look up then, with a mortified expression. Theon had to take pity on her. “You were right. I _was_ being an ass. It’s me who should be sorry.” Sansa smiled at him then, but the laughter in Theon had died. _She is so innocent._ When he imagined introducing her to his father, or Asha, or showing her Pyke, he cringed. _She will hate it. She likes pretty things, palaces and blue seas and silk and jewels, and Pyke has only rocks and cold water and seaweed. She should be marrying a Tyrell or a Lannister, not a Greyjoy._

“Still, it was rude,” Sansa insisted, slightly more comfortable now, but only slightly. Theon’s expression had lapsed into darkness again, like thunderclouds covering the sun. “You – I suppose you must know that –” _Why is it so hard to get the words out?_

“We are to be wed,” Theon finished for her, shortly. “Yes. I know.”

Sansa cringed inwardly.

A moment of awkward silence. Sansa felt panic close her throat. _He doesn’t want me._ Mortifyingly, she could feel tears begin to prick in her eyes. She swallowed, and looked down. “I hope that doesn’t displease you,” she said, as loudly and as steadily as she could, though her voice was quiet and thick with tears.

“No,” Theon said quickly, sensing her distress. _You shit,_ he cursed himself, _now look what you’ve done._ “No, it doesn’t displease me. I’m just – surprised, is all.”

“Me too,” Sansa managed. Another awkward silence ensued. Theon struggled for something more to say, but his mind was full of images of how she would cry when he brought her to Pyke, how she would beg to go home, and his heart clenched. She looked so beautiful with the wind in her hair and her blue eyes shining, even filled with tears, and the ache of suddenly wanting her was compounded by the pain of knowing she would soon be his. _Be careful what you bloody wish for._

“Theon,” Robb called from the yard below. Theon could have run down the stairs and kissed him in gratitude. “Father wants you.”

Sansa watched him go with a heavy heart. She had wanted to say something about how she hoped she would make him happy, but she didn’t know if Theon had it _in_ him to be happy, and that scared her more than she could put into words. Did he think of her only as a sister? Was that it, that he could not see her as a wife or a lover, that she was still only and always a childhood playmate? _If I try, very hard, I could make him love me. I could make him see me that way. I could._

She went inside, already calculating. At dinner tonight she would dress beautifully, and sit next to him, and laugh at every joke he made. She would _make_ him see, make him see she was a woman now, and make him desire her.

Theon could hear his real father’s voice echoing in his head as he went to answer Lord Eddard’s summons. He had not seen Lord Balon for over ten years, and yet he could still hear his voice as if he had seen his father only yesterday. _Some soft southern whore, you dare bring home to me? She’s not fit to be the wife of the heir to Pyke. Keep the girl as a salt wife, if you must, but don’t expect me to call her ‘daughter’, and any whelps you have by her will be heir to nothing._ There was ice in Theon’s veins, burning ice, as he pictured his father saying that in _Sansa’s_ presence, the way her face would crumble, her cheeks red with shame, her blue eyes spilling tears. His fists were clenched beneath his cloak, he came to realise, so hard it hurt.

Theon’s own grandfather Quellon had married a mainlander, a daughter of House Piper, but when he died and his son Balon became lord, he undid all of his father’s reforms and swore no Greyjoy would ever marry outside of the islands again, save for salt wives. Lord Eddard said he knew this, and had written to Lord Balon to ask for his permission, but Theon knew he would not get it.

_I’ll ask Lord Eddard to break the engagement,_ he decided as he crossed the yard and entered the Great Keep. _There’s been no announcement, there’s still time. I’ll persuade him somehow, make him see I can keep faith without marrying into the mainland._ And yet, that possibility carried its own sting. So long, he’d felt an outsider in Winterfell. Even Jon, the bastard, had Stark blood in his veins. Theon had none. He was just the ward, not truly Eddard Stark’s son, but no longer truly Balon Greyjoy’s either. But if he married Sansa… _Don’t even think it._

Lord Eddard was with Maester Luwin when Theon entered the solar. The Lord of Winterfell looked grave, but in Theon’s experience that meant very little. His was not a face that easily showed his feelings.

“Theon, come in,” he said. Theon saw the scroll in his fingers. _Is it war? The wildlings, come down from the Wall? No. He’d send for Robb, his son and heir, not for me._

“Is there some news for me, my lord?” Theon asked warily.

“Yes.” Lord Eddard hesitated for a moment, and glanced at Luwin, before continuing. “Theon, I’m afraid your lord father has died.”

_Oh, thank the gods._

Theon immediately felt guilty at the thought, sickeningly so, but he could not help thinking it anyway. Even from a thousand leagues away, Lord Balon’s shadow had lain over Theon’s life for as long as he could remember, the memory of his childhood a mostly bitter recollection largely down to his father’s cold, distant, sometimes cruel presence. _I was just thinking about how awful he was, and now, this. Did I make this happen?_ He shook the childish thought off.

“Any news of my mother and sister?” he asked Lord Eddard instead. Maester Luwin answered.

“Lady Asha sent the letter, from her – your – uncle’s seat Ten Towers. She was visiting your lady mother when the news came to her.”

_They told Asha before me, his heir._ Cold fury settled in Theon’s heart like a sudden snowfall.

“If you wish to postpone your engagement to Sansa, to attend your father’s funeral and take your place as Lord before we go any further, I understand,” Lord Eddard said gently.

Theon felt like the ground was shifting beneath his feet. _My father is gone, and I am the Lord of Pyke, of all the Iron Islands. No-one could criticise me for marrying Sansa now. I’m their lord, they’ll accept it, or I’ll put them down._

“No,” he heard himself saying. “I’ll wed her here, and bring her back to Pyke.” _And how glad she’ll be of it,_ said a cruel, mocking voice in the back of his head. Theon ignored it.

It was only later, as he left the solar, that the true enormity of his father’s death hit Theon. To go back to Pyke, to face his mother and sister again, to face the Ironborn, that he had not seen or known or mingled with since he was ten years old…to leave Winterfell. To leave Bran’s laughter, and Rickon’s fierceness, and Jon’s quiet companionship. To never again curse Arya for getting in his way. To never fight alongside Robb again, drink with him, chase girls with him. Lost again, he walked blindly through the castle, letting his feet take him where they may, as the sun sank lower in the sky, turning the world blood-red.

Sansa had nearly all her gowns spread out over her and Arya’s bed and was staring at them critically, chewing her lip, with a hand on her hip. Arya, slumped on the window seat, groaned.

“Gods be good, Sansa!”

“What? I just can’t decide what to wear, is all. I have to be beautiful tonight.”

Arya shrugged. “Wear the blue silk. With the lacy bits on, you know.” She pointed with a booted foot. “That one.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “That’s my _nameday_ dress, stupid. I only wore it last night, I can’t wear it again.”

“But that’s your nicest one!” Arya said, confused. Sansa shook her head.

“Never mind, you don’t understand.”

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s only _Theon._ And you’re already betrothed, why would you need to make him like you? He’s going to marry you anyway.”

Sansa chewed her lip harder. “Like I said, you don’t understand.” She ran a finger over a grey velvet with white fur, pink satin, blue lace, white samite. _Something simple. Something that sets off my hair, and my eyes._ Her eyes shifted to a simply cut gown of shimmering blue velvet, with long sleeves and a scooped neckline. _Perfect._

Beth brushed her hair as Arya struggled back into the green wool gown she had been wearing that morning, before she changed into her leathers to train with the boys. Sansa examined herself in the glass. The pale blue made her eyes look brighter, and her hair like crimson flame. She chose a necklace, a simple silver locket on a silk ribbon, also pale blue, and Beth pinned her hair back with silver slides carved with flowers and leaves.

“Come _on,_ I’m _hungry,_ ” Arya groaned from the doorway, having long since given up trying to get a comb through her hair. Sansa followed her down to dinner with butterflies in her stomach. But when they entered the hall, Theon was once again nowhere to be seen.

Sansa took her place between Arya and Bran and tried to hide her disappointment. Would he avoid her completely until the wedding? What did he _mean_ by it? She glanced up at her father at the head of the table instinctively, as always, looking to him to help her with her problem. He was talking with Robb, both their faces grave. To Sansa’s surprise, Robb looked down the table at her, and then back to their father again, and disquiet slipped into her heart. _Something is amiss._

Theon made no appearance all through dinner, and Sansa was forced to pick at her food once again, her stomach too full of butterflies to put food in. Arya at least had the good sense not to tease her about her melancholy this time – perhaps she too sensed the mood of her father and eldest brother. She talked to Bran over Sansa’s head, leaving her older sister to her anxious silence.

Sansa asked permission to leave the table early, unusual enough for her that her mother, Bran and Arya all gave her quizzical looks, but her father nodded, and Robb gave her a smile she supposed was meant as some reassurance, and left the table with her. She fell into step beside him, and steeled herself for whatever he was about to tell her.

Robb stopped her in an alcove. “Let’s talk here for a moment.” Sansa nodded, face solemn in the candlelight. “Father asked me to tell you – Theon’s father died a week or so past.”

Sansa’s mouth opened, unbidden. _Oh, gods. It was never me at all. How could I have been so small and self-centred?_

Robb put a hand on her shoulder. “I know, it’s something of a shock. Father said you should know, since the two of you are betrothed, and he asks you to be sweet to Theon, and try to help him. He says he knows you’ll do well at that.”

Sansa smiled a little at the compliment, but it felt wrong, and she quickly returned to a frown. “I would be sweet to him, if I ever saw him,” she replied in a small voice. “Won’t you talk to him, Robb? Ask him to let me in? I know it hasn’t been so long, that he has time to come around, but he seemed so cold and awkward with me when I tried to talk to him about the engagement. Will you ask him how he feels about me?”

There was a blush in Robb’s cheeks now, and he looked uncomfortable. “Don’t you think _you_ should ask him?” he asked a little desperately, clearly unwilling to ask his best friend how he felt about Robb’s own little sister. When he saw Sansa’s pleading eyes, though, he melted. “Alright. I’ll ask him tomorrow to talk to you. How about that?”

“Thank you,” his sister replied with a smile. A moment’s pause, and then she sprang into his arms, wrapping hers around his shoulders. Robb smiled, and returned her hug for a moment or two, before she drew away. “Thank you,” she said again, before turning in a swirl of shimmering pale blue velvet, smiling over her shoulder at her older brother as she climbed the stairs.

Theon was so lost in his own thoughts he had never seen he was in the Great Keep before he passed the long window in the west-facing corridor and saw that the sun was no more than a thin, red-gold line on the horizon, and the stars were already a glittering pantheon in the night sky. He stopped for a moment and turned his head a little to watch as the last shreds of daylight slowly, slowly faded below the earth, and then made to set off again, back to his chamber he supposed, since dinner was probably over by now, and he had no desire to make conversation. As he started to walk again, however, a slender maiden in a blue dress rounded the corner and nearly walked straight into his chest.

Sansa had been lost in her own world as well as she made her way to bed, so that she had not seen her betrothed standing at the window until it was too late. He saved her from colliding with him by grasping her by the shoulders as he had done on his first night in Winterfell, though she was too young then to remember that particular detail of the encounter. She gasped a little and felt her face flush crimson again as she looked up into his faintly bemused face.

“Theon – I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking –”

“Nor was I.” Theon realised her still had hold of her shoulders. He could feel the warmth of her through her gown. He dropped his hands abruptly.

Sansa’s expression had softened from mortification to pity. “I’m so sorry, Theon,” she said softly, and he knew from her tone that she was no longer talking about walking into him. “Robb told me.”

“Don’t be,” Theon blurted. “I haven’t seen him since I was ten. I never saw him much even before I came here.” He didn’t know why he was being so honest, all of a sudden – perhaps because the words had been on his mind all day, and he was only now served with the opportunity to speak them aloud. “Your father was more a father to me than Lord Balon ever was.” The words nearly brought tears to his eyes. He had never said that to anyone, though he had often thought it.

Sansa’s blue eyes were wet and shining too. _Gods damn me, I’ve made her cry again._ She tried to smile through it. “So I suppose you must go home now. Will it be sweet to see your sister again, and your mother?”

“I…I suppose so.” _I would not refer to Asha as ‘sweet’, and when last I saw my mother, grief had snapped her mind beyond repair. Your new family, dear wife – I wish you joy of them._ Theon could never say that to her, though.

“I’m excited to meet them,” Sansa blurted. Her cheeks were still hot, though thankfully her tears were receding. When Theon had spoken of her father as he had, looking as lost and forlorn as a little boy, it had near moved her to weeping. “And to see Pyke. We can be happy there, Theon,” she said desperately, moved to be bold and candid by some unknown need. “I know we can. You’ll be Lord of Pyke, and I will be your lady, and we’ll make everyone love us, and rule well. I _know_ it,” she finished, rather childishly, but determined.

Theon looked at into Sansa’s lovely face as she spoke, her flushed cheeks, her sparkling eyes, bright and hard with determination. _So brave,_ he thought, _perhaps she will survive on Pyke after all. With my father gone, things will be easier. And she is so beautiful._ Guilt reared its ugly head again. _I should not think of her like that. Never mind that she’s to be my wife. It feels wrong, it is wrong._ And yet, he couldn’t help stare at her red lips, or the faint freckles on her cheeks, or where her silver locket rested on her rapidly rising and falling chest. He felt his own cheeks go red.

“We’ll make everyone love us?” he echoed softly. “And what of we two? Will we love each other?” _Do you love me already, sweetling? Is that possible?_

Sansa’s eyes were huge and dark, the sapphire in them shrunk to a sliver. “Of course,” she said modestly, glancing down. “All husbands and wives love each other.”

Theon put a hand to her face gently, and lifted her chin up. A moment passed, hung in the air, and then he pressed a quick kiss to Sansa’s lips.

It was only a moment, and then Theon pulled away, cheeks burning, and left Sansa standing in the corridor, hurrying away from her and down the stairs.

Sansa held her fingers to her lips as he brushed past her, though she did not touch them. Everywhere Theon had touched her seemed to burn. She stood there for a long time, how long she did not know, until her head stopped spinning. She walked to her room, undressed with Beth’s help, and slipped into bed like she was walking through a dream. She was awake when Arya came to bed, and all through the rest of the night, still burning, burning, burning. When she closed her eyes, she could feel his lips on hers, his hand on her face, his hot breath. She felt like he had opened a vein in her, and released something hot and sweet into her bloodstream.

Finally, she got up from the bed and went to the window. The night air was blessedly cool and sweet on her hot face, and she leaned out, allowing the breeze to kiss her face and hair. _Will it be like that every time? Will it be that way on our wedding night?_ The thought sent a delicious thrill through her, but it frightened her, too. She had never felt so… _vulnerable_ , before. It was like Theon had touched through her clothes, through her skin, right into somewhere only she knew of, somewhere Sansa wasn’t sure she wanted anyone to go, not just yet.

In her dreams that night, she was riding through an open field, on a proud black stallion. The wind whipping through her hair, the country speeding past, the thunder of his hooves on the earth all gave Sansa a thrill of excitement she had never felt, and she urged her mount on, but ahead she saw a sheer cliff approaching, and her excitement died and was replaced by terror. Her stallion wouldn’t listen to her, no matter how she pulled on the reins or sat back in the saddle. When they went plunging over the cliff, Sansa woke with a start, soaked in sweat, with the dawn light leaking in through the canopy bed.

Theon dreamed that night as well, though much differently than Sansa, and had you asked him about it in the morning he would have denied all recollection in shame.

He had spent much of his night after he kissed his bride-to-be in the Smoking Log in the winter town, getting as drunk as was humanly possible. He couldn’t remember stumbling to the room upstairs once the already quiet inn was fully deserted and falling on the bed, but suddenly he was back in the corridor with Sansa. This time when he kissed her, though, he did not pull away as he had, but pressed her to him with both arms. Her mouth opened for him, and his hands were tangling in her bright hair and caressing her soft face. Her lips were soft as velvet, and when he lightly sunk his teeth into the bottom one she moaned into his mouth. _Sansa, Sansa, sweetling,_ he was whispering to her, though his mouth was still occupied with hers; somehow she was saying his name in similar tones. His lips found the soft skin of her neck just below her ear, and he pushed her hard against the wall. He woke just as he pushed her skirt up, with her moans still lingering in his mind. _Theon, Theon, Theon…_

“Theon. _Theon.”_

The sunlight hurt his eyes. Robb threw a shirt at him. “Get up, it’s near to midday. What were you _doing_ all last night? Never mind, I don’t want to know. I’ve been sent to bring you back. Don’t you know there’s a wedding to plan now, as well as a war?”

Robb’s tone was teasing, but Theon felt wretched. He could not look Robb in the eyes, and remained silent as they rode back to Winterfell. Guilt ate at him. She was to be his wife, but passion and marriage were different things altogether, and somehow feeling lust for Sansa, his own betrothed, brought more shame to Theon than any of his village conquests and their swollen bellies ever did. _Because she is Robb’s little sister, Lord Eddard’s daughter. She is a bright star, so far above me. So innocent, where I am so wretched. By what right, do I look at her in such a way, or ask for her hand? By what right?_


	3. blood of my blood, and bone of my bone

The morning of Sansa’s first wedding day dawned clear, bright, and cold. She woke long before the sun rose, and watched the streaks of gold, pink, and white leak over the ceiling of the canopy and sneak beneath the curtains. Beside her, Arya breathed steady and deep, her warmth and weight in the bed comforting and familiar. _This is the last time,_ Sansa thought to herself. _Tomorrow I will wake with Theon beside me instead._ The thrill of adrenaline went through her again, equal parts excitement and terror.

It had snowed the night before, the last throes of winter before the oncoming of spring, and all the castle was dressed in Stark white and grey, just as Sansa would be – all the castle, but not the godswood, which would be warm and steaming as ever from the hot pools. Beth woke Sansa and Arya with a tray of fresh-baked bread, creamy porridge with dollops of honey, fresh berries and cream; but while Arya wolfed hers down, Sansa could not touch a bite. She stayed in her room all day, talking idly with Arya, as the sun rose and then began to fall again, unable to concentrate on anything. At dusk, when their mother came to help them both dress, Sansa was sat at the dressing table still in her sleeping shift, pale and anxious.

Lady Catelyn shook her head and smiled when she saw her elder daughter’s pale, drawn face. “Oh, dear, are we nervous?” she said gently, running a hand through Sansa’s still-unbrushed hair. “Perfectly natural, sweetling. I didn’t eat a thing the morning I was wed to your father. Come, let me help you dress.”

Beth had drawn her bath already, with help from Jeyne Poole and another serving girl. Sansa stepped in as Arya held her hair out of the water to avoid getting it wet – it would not have time to dry before the wedding. The hot water and the gentle sensation of her back being soaped and washed was soothing, but her stomach was still full of butterflies even as she stepped out and was wrapped in the towel. As Jeyne began to brush her hair out, Sansa’s mind drifted back to the kiss, as it had been drifting for weeks and weeks, fixatedly.

She had told no-one about it, not even Jeyne, not even _Arya._ But as preparations for her wedding drew on, Sansa found herself reliving that moment in the corridor over and over again; while the dressmakers fitted her gown, while Septa Mordane lectured her on a wife’s proper duty and Maester Luwin educated her on the politics and traditions of the Iron Islands. Sansa knew she should have been listening, but her mind was always on Theon. Whenever she thought of him her heart thrilled, but with delight or fear she could not tell yet. _I didn’t think it would feel like that._ All her songs told of chaste love, pure and divine, between knights and their ladies. No-one ever told Sansa about the heat, the desperate heart-beat, the aching. Every time she caught herself thinking of it, she blushed, and endeavoured to push it out of her mind; but the harder she tried, the more she thought about it.

Sansa realized she had drifted away again as her mother asked her to stand while they helped her into her smallclothes. Then it was time for the dress – white velvet with puffed sleeves, slashed to show the grey fur lining. The skirt and bodice were covered with lace and shimmered with pearls. Sansa’s hair was held under a silver net, also studded with pearls, and pushed back with a silver and pearl headdress that gave her a glittering halo, bright as stars against her red hair.

Lady Catelyn had tears in her eyes as she beheld her eldest daughter in her bridal finery. “Oh, my sweet,” she said softly, holding her at arm’s length. “You look enchanting.”

Even Arya had no jokes to tell. She beamed at Sansa, wearing grey velvet trimmed with white to match with her sister. “Truly, you’ve outdone yourself.” Jeyne and Beth and the other maidservants made noises of approval as well.

Sansa nodded and smiled shyly, accepting the compliments, and as she admired herself in the mirror she could not help admitting she made a lovely bride. _If only I could have talked to my bridegroom for more than a minute before today._ Sansa had to give Theon some credit – though they had lived in the same castle all their lives together, he had managed to make himself as strange and distant to Sansa as any man from Highgarden or Dorne. Even at the feast celebrating their betrothal, as they sat side by side on the dais, Theon had looked into his wine goblet more than he had looked at Sansa, and stalked off at the first opportunity. _If he didn’t want to marry me, he would have put a stop to it by now,_ she tried to reassure herself. _He’s a man grown now, and the Lord of Pyke, no-one can force him to wed if he doesn’t want to_ , _not even my father. He must want me. He_ must.

Still, as the wedding had approached closer and closer, to Sansa’s eyes Theon had seemed only more and more sullen, and every time she had tried to find him, to spend time with him, she found him gone from the castle – hunting, hawking, riding, or drinking – it didn’t matter what, if it took him from the castle, Theon did it. A less well-trained girl than Sansa might have been driven to anger, and she had to admit, she was growing dangerously frustrated with her betrothed. _After today, he won’t be able to escape me,_ she thought determinedly. _So there will be no more games._

Theon, for his part, was perfectly miserable.

Guilt had driven him as far away from Sansa as possible for the last weeks up to the wedding, but his time was up, and it was time to confront the inevitable. As he stood in the warmth of the godswood, head pounding and mouth dry, he pondered just going to the stables, mounting his horse, and riding away. Not back to Pyke, just…away. Away from his own confusion, fear, anger, shame. _Is it possible to run away from your own mind?_ He ran a hand beneath his collar and felt cold sweat under his fingers. Grimacing, he moved to massage his temples. _Gods damn me, why did I drink so much last night?_ At least with the sun gone, his eyes were in less pain, but the flickering torches in the godswood were a different kind of torture.

Robb laughed, and made some joke, but Theon couldn’t hear him over the pounding in his skull. The face carved into the white trunk of the weirwood seemed to be grinning viciously at him. _It knows this isn’t right. It knows I shouldn’t be here._ Theon felt faintly sick.

Despite her misgivings, Sansa still felt like she was floating as she descended the stairs to go to the godswood. Her father waited for her at the bottom of the staircase, as he had in all of her dreams of her wedding day. When she took his arm, she was startled to see tears in his grey eyes.

“Father? Is aught amiss?”

“No, child,” Lord Eddard smiled. “All is well.” He sighed, and suddenly he looked older than Sansa had eve realised. “This day has been planned for so long…longer than you know. It is strange to see all the plans come to fruition at last.”

“I hope I will make you proud on Pyke,” Sansa said in a small voice. Tears were thickening her voice as well. Lord Eddard smiled warmly at his daughter.

“I need no hope. I _know_ you will make me proud. You are your mother’s daughter, but you have the North in you, too, and you are strong.” He placed a hand on hers, and squeezed gently. “Stronger than you know.”

_Stronger than I know._ Sansa thought on that as they made their way through the godswood, father and daughter together, past the crowds of men and women, her lord father’s bannermen, the people of Winterfell; faces Sansa had known all her life, many of whom she’d loved well. When she got to Pyke, and her second wedding ceremony, the faces would all be strange. _I will make them love me too. Whatever it takes, and Theon as well. I am stronger than I know._

They stopped before the heart tree.

The torches shone on Sansa’s hair beneath its net, and turned it as red as the leaves of the weirwood above them. All in white, with her blue eyes bright in her pale face, she stole Theon’s breath completely. _All that beauty, wasted on me._ And he was taking what was offered, even knowing it was wrong; it felt like he was stealing some precious jewel, a diamond, no, a pearl, and throwing it in the dirt.

“Who comes before the gods?” Robb asked them.

“Sansa, of House Stark, comes here to be wed,” Lord Eddard replied. Sansa could feel her heartbeat in her throat. She could hardly look at Theon, but she stole a glance all the same. He was handsome, of course, in black velvet and fur with the golden kraken worked on the front in gold thread. But his face was pale and drawn, and the grey of his eyes stood out against the dark hollows beneath them. “A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble. She comes to ask the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?”

Against his will, against his better judgement, Theon stepped forward. “Theon, of House Greyjoy, the Lord Reaper of Pyke,” he said hoarsely, wincing at the pain in his temples. “Who gives her?”

“Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North,” Lord Stark replied solemnly. “Her lord father.”

Her father turned to her, tears still in his grey eyes, and smiled at his daughter. Sansa drew her strength from that smile, drew her courage. _I am a Stark. Yes, I can be brave._ “Lady Sansa, do you take this man?”

Sansa nodded. “I take this man,” she said, firmly, clearly. _And all that comes with him._

They knelt together beneath the heart tree to pray. Sansa closed her eyes, but Theon kept his open a crack, looking at her under his eyelashes. _My wife._ She prayed with her lips slightly apart and her long lashes brushing her faintly freckled cheeks, her hands clasped together in her lap. Theon wanted to reach out and touch her, brush his fingers over her rosy lips and soft cheeks, but suddenly the moment was done with and she opened her eyes again. Theon turned his head away from her with a start. He held his hand out to her without looking back at her as he stood, and she took it gently and rose to her feet as well.

When they turned to the assembled lords of the North, a cheer went up, but Theon could see the hostile faces in the crowd – the heir to Hornwood, Cley Cerwyn, other young Northern lads who’d had an eye to Sansa’s hand. She smiled, radiant, Theon’s hand tight in hers, and he couldn’t help feeling a little pride as he looked to those angry faces. _She’s mine, now, always. So beautiful, so good, and so_ mine.

There was a feast, but there would be no bedding until they got to Pyke. For that much, Theon was grateful. He still had to sit there, though, with Sansa laughing and glowing beside him, feeling like a fraud. He drank again, though he knew he shouldn’t, glass after glass. His vision swam, and the hall was too damn hot. The laughter, the shouted jests, the yelled insults, cut through his head like a knife.

“Are you well?” Her hand on Theon’s made him jump. Sansa was looking at him, he saw when he turned his head, with concern in her eyes. “Theon?”

“I – yes. I’m sorry, I’m just tired.”

“Yes, I know. I didn’t sleep a wink last night.” _Her cheeks dimple when she smiles. So pretty. How is it I never noticed that before?_

“Me neither,” Theon admitted, feeling slow-witted and dull. Getting the thoughts out was like wading through hot tar.

“Are – are you happy, Theon?” she asked. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes dropped shyly to the table. Her hand was still laid on his, warm and soft and light.

“Yes,” he lied. “Of course I’m happy. You would make any man happy.”

“Oh,” Sansa said softly. He could tell that hadn’t pleased her; she took her hand off his.

“Are _you_ happy?” Theon ventured, half-desperate and half-afraid. Sansa lifted her eyes to his.

“Of course,” she mirrored him, coolly. “I’ve dreamed of my wedding day for years.”

_And the choice of bridegroom is neither here nor there,_ Theon surmised dryly in his head. _Will we ever stop talking in half-truths and empty courtesies?_ He remembered the last time he’d attempted honesty, though; in the corridor, the night after they knew they were to be wed. That kiss still haunted him – it felt stolen, stolen from the better man she should be marrying.

Despite the warmth in the hall, Sansa felt cold all over. _Is this it, then? Is this my life, forever and ever, a husband who doesn’t want me, and a cold castle far away from home?_ Despair closed her throat and brought tears to her eyes, tears she tried to will away. _I am a Stark, and stronger than I know._ Still, fear made the shadows in the hall seem so much darker, and the shadows in her new husband’s eyes as well. She looked up and down the dais at her family – her mother and father, fondly smiling at each other and talking softly; Jon and Arya, chatting animatedly in a corner of the hall; Bran and Rickon, laughing and shoving each other playfully. Her childhood friend Jeyne Poole was glowing as she talked to some tall squire, laughing as she touched his chest. _Tomorrow I board ship for Pyke, never to see any of them again._ She was surrounded by people, but Sansa had never felt so alone.

The road to the coast was a short one, and not well travelled. Northerners as a people tended to prefer to stay inland. As the night turned to dawn, Sansa watched from the window of the wheelhouse; pale light in the east, chasing the stars away. Just a few hours earlier, she had held Rickon tight, and Bran, as they tried to hide their tears and appear brave and manly; she had kissed Robb’s cheek, and he hers; she had knelt for the blessing of her lady mother. Arya had surprised her – she had jumped into Sansa’s arms, tears running down her cheeks, and held her fiercely.

“I love you, sister,” she had whispered for only Sansa to hear. “Don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” Sansa had gasped, tears blurring her vision. “I won’t.”

And as he helped her into the wheelhouse, Theon had squeezed her hand – only for a second, perhaps she had imagined it, but then, perhaps not. It felt like comfort, all the same. Still, as the wheelhouse rocked gently and the daylight grew stronger, Sansa felt dampness on her cheeks.

Her father had only hugged her tight, and said nothing. He had already given her strength before she went to the godswood; Sansa needed no more instruction from him. _I am a Stark, and stronger than I know._

Theon sat opposite her, lost in shadow. She had thought him asleep, but then:

“Sansa?”

Sansa looked away from the window. “Theon?”

“Are you…are you alright?” His face was lost in shadow, but then he leaned forward. Sansa brushed her tears away, too late. “Don’t cry,” he said softly. “Please don’t. We’ll go back to Winterfell, I promise. Someday soon…” His voice was so full of longing. Sansa sniffed, and wiped her cheeks with her sleeve again.

“I know,” she said, unable to think of anything else, unable to speak, her heart too full. She looked back out of the window once again.

Aboard ship, Theon almost felt like a son of the islands once again. He hadn’t set foot on one since he left as a boy, but his balance was as sure as if he had never left the deck. The smell of the sea, the salt and the spray, the wind in his hair, all felt like they were washing some kind of poison from him, bringing him back to life.

Or maybe that was the sight of a certain maid at the bowsprit, the wind in her hair, dancing like a flame in a grate. The ship was called the _Merry Maid,_ and her figurehead was a beautiful girl with flowing dark hair, clad in white; but she wasn’t half as lovely as the red-haired maiden she carried to Pyke. Sansa was merry as well; she laughed with the crew and charmed them all, even the most cantankerous old sailor falling for her grace and wit, and she was a natural on a ship. Theon began to have hope every time he saw her on the deck, sure-footed and nimble, asking the captain and crew questions about the rigging and how to navigate the seas with her blue eyes bright and clever; hope that she might win the respect of the Ironborn after all.

Though honour-bound not to sleep together until their wedding was completed with the Ironborn ceremony, Sansa and Theon found themselves spending more and more time with each other. On the ship, it all seemed easier – surrounded by strangers, and between Pyke and Winterfell in some kind of neutral space, the cradle of the ocean holding them, suspending them in time. When she asked him to eat with her the first night on the ship, he accepted with reluctance in his heart, but as the night went on the hard, choking weight in his throat began to dissolve under her sweet smile, her gentle questions about Pyke, about his sister and mother.

“Do you remember much about them?”

“Asha was more like Arya than you, I remember that much.” That made Sansa smile. “And my mother…” _Tell her the truth. Prepare her._ “Well, after my brothers died, she was…different. Sad, and…to a nine year old, she seemed…scary.” Theon looked down at his plate, avoiding Sansa’s gaze, but she reached across the table and took his hand.

“Maybe, if… _when_ we give her grandchildren…it may bring her happiness once again.” Her voice so sweet, so full of hope. Theon swallowed.

“We should sleep. We have a long journey ahead of us.” He took his hand from hers and stood.

After that, Sansa carefully avoided the topic of family, and stuck to more neutral territory. It was easier to get Theon to laugh, to reminisce about jokes shared as children, than it was to engage him on any serious topic anyway. She could feel him growing lighter and brighter the longer they were at sea, more like the boy she had known and not the sardonic, dark man he had become; still, he had never attempted to touch her beyond a brush on her hand or her arm, and he had not kissed her since the corridor nearly a moon ago. Events had moved quickly, but they had not; it was like being trapped in amber.

She waited out the days on deck, beneath spring sunshine, rocked by steady seas as the ship was spurred on by a sharp, strong wind. The weather was perfect, not rough, but not maddingly calm either; and the good weather brought with it good humour to the crew, who Sansa made a point of talking to. _If I am to help Theon rule Pyke well, I must be able to make ordinary people love me._ She had always had a knack for charming people, but it was Arya who was comfortable consorting with smallfolk, not Sansa – still, she saw the need for her to step outside her comfort zone now. Pyke would be beyond her experience too, and Theon would not speak of the place – when she asked, he’d shortly told her he remembered little of the Iron Islands and refused to say any more on the matter. So what Sansa knew of the Iron Islands, their complex politics, their harsh climate and hard men, came from Maester Luwin’s lessons, and was augmented by her discussions with the crew of the _Merry Maid._

It was those discussions that played on her mind as Pyke appeared on the horizon. Sansa squinted as she stood on the bow of the ship, slowly rocking her way into the harbour. The lords of the Iron Islands had gathered for the wedding of their liege lord, although Maester Luwin had told her not to expect much ceremony – the Ironborn respected strength as much if not more than blood, and until Theon had earned that respect they might withhold it. Still, Sansa thought she saw a lot of banners fluttering above the choppy water, and she tried to recall them as she had in Maester Luwin’s tower room in Winterfell.

“A silver scythe on black, House Harlaw of Ten Towers…a skeletal hand, white on Red, House Drumm of Old Wyk…a black leviathan on grey, House Volmark of Volmark…” Sansa was whispering to herself in a shaky voice, hand on the railing, as Theon came up behind her. She started a little when he laid a hand on her shoulder. _She is scared._

“Very good,” he smiled, trying to bring her comfort. “I couldn’t have remembered any better.” She favoured him with one of her shy, dimpled smiles.

“Thank you.”

“It is called the land of ten thousand kings,” Theon said grimly.

“Why?” Sansa asked sweetly. She knew why, but this was the first time Theon had seemed willing to discuss the islands with her, and she wanted him to keep talking.

“Because every captain on the islands is a king on board his own ship, and there are countless ships, with countless captains,” Theon replied in the same grim tone. _He is as scared as I am. He doesn’t think he can govern them, but he can._ We _can. We_ must.

Less than a hundred islanders awaited them on the docks. Foremost among them was a tall, slender woman with short dark hair lifting in the breeze, wearing supple black leathers with the golden kraken of Greyjoy embossed on it in worn yellow gold. It was this woman who came forward with hand extended to help Sansa from the skiff to the stone of the dock. Sansa took in the scars on her hand, and the throwing axe slung from her hip.

“Lady Asha,” she said before the older woman could open her mouth. She raised an eyebrow in surprise, and then smirked a little.

“Lady Sansa. I did not expect you to know me.”

“Who else could you be, my lady?” Sansa asked with a smile, looking her up and down. Asha Greyjoy chuckled a little, appraising her future good-sister with cool grey eyes.

“Aye. Well met.” She moved past Sansa, to pull her brother up from the skiff.

“Sister,” Theon said warily.

“Theon.” Asha smiled, though not warmly. “You’ve grown.”

_They look just like each other,_ Sansa observed as she watched them talk. They were of a height, both with dark hair, lean bodies, cool grey eyes. _And they smile the same._ Sharp, and sardonic – not cold, but not exactly warm, either. They could nearly be twins, though Asha was a few years older than Theon, Sansa knew.

Behind her, Sansa could feel the eyes of the Ironborn lords on her. She glanced over her shoulder, skin prickling.

“Lady Sansa.” A man of average height, brown haired and eyed, with a short brown beard shot through with grey had addressed her. He dressed in all black, with a silver scythe clasping the folds of his cloak.

“Lord Harlaw,” Sansa said confidently, sinking into a smooth curtsey. Lord Rodrik Harlaw nodded, and smiled. His smile was much warmer than Asha Greyjoy’s, Sansa noted with a rush of relief.

“Welcome to Pyke, my lady. I hope you will be happy here.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Will you allow me to escort you up to the castle?” Lord Rodrik held out an arm. Sansa looked up at the castle looming above, the spray shattering against the slick black rocks, the rope bridges swaying in the breeze and the seabirds calling harshly as they wheeled above it. She took a deep breath, and linked her arm through Rodrik Harlaw’s.

“With pleasure, my lord.”

Walking through the corridors of Pyke again was like walking through a dream.

Theon blinked as he took in the dark stone, the carvings, the constant sound of the sea and the birds calling, each details taking the faded memories he had and sharpening them, brightening them. Sansa walked between his uncle Rodrik and Asha, but Theon walked alone, drinking in the memories, the bitter and the sweet.

_I played in these corridors. Hid from Rodrik in that alcove. Dared Asha to climb from that window._

Sansa came up behind him, and placed a hand on his arm. “Is it as you remembered?”

“…It seems smaller.”

Sansa laughed. The sweet sound echoed off the cold black stone and made Asha and Lord Rodrik stop their murmured conversation. “Everything seems bigger when you’re a child.”

“Maybe so,” Theon smiled. He studied Sansa’s face carefully as she looked around her. So far, she had let no flicker of disappointment or unhappiness cross her face, but Theon was still wary. _Perhaps she still believes she is in one of her songs, that the brave hero is still coming to rescue her. One look at my mother will put paid to that._

There would be plenty of feasting after the wedding ceremony. Instead of eating, as the sun sunk lower in the sky, Sansa was shown to her chamber, to dress for her second wedding.

Her dress was much simpler for this ceremony, grey velvet bands over thin white samite. It had no jewels, no diamonds or pearls. Her hair was scooped up and held back with a simple silver band with no other adornment. The women who helped her into it were old and grey, and silent. There was an air of quiet expectation in the air, but no fuss, no giggling girls and women weeping for joy.

Asha Greyjoy and Rodrik Harlaw escorted her out of the castle and out onto the thin strand. The iron-grey sea heaved and washed before them, and gathered on the shore and on the rocks were the lords of the Iron Islands, silent, sombre.

Theon stood at the water’s edge, bare chested, back to Sansa. He didn’t turn as she approached, but Sansa knew that was what custom dictated. The cold wind off the water bit through her thin gown and made her shiver; as did the sight of the priest in the water. Sansa took in his long hair and nails, his wasted face, and cringed despite her best efforts to appear brave. Asha Greyjoy leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“Our uncle, Aeron, the Damphair. He is the holiest man on the islands.”

“He is glaring at me,” Sansa whispered back, dumbfounded. Asha gave a low chuckle.

“Yes. He doesn’t believe in performing a true Ironborn marriage ceremony on a soft girl from the green lands. Our uncle the Reader had to come to Pyke to persuade him in person, and even now, he does it only under duress. He believes the Lord Reaper should be taking a iron maiden to wife.”

Sansa swallowed thickly. _Do they all hate me so?_ One look at the hostile faces all around told her yes. Sansa had never been hated before, never in her life. She realised she was shaking.

Asha stopped her before they got to the water’s edge. “Here, girl.” She squeezed her arm. “Have courage.”

Sansa looked at her, a little surprised. Asha merely gave her another sardonic smile. “Go on, then. Surely you know what to do.”

Sansa did know. She slipped her shoes off and felt the cold, damp sand between her toes. Asha Greyjoy had the privilege of unlacing her gown, and some young girl with greasy dark hair and a pimpled face dressed in the white and red of House Drumm unbound Sansa’s hair. Her dress fell to her feet, and she stepped out of it, shivering in only her shift. Then she walked to Theon.

Theon glanced down at her, as she took his hand. He could feel her frantic pulse in her slender wrist. Together, they walked into the icy water.

Sansa gritted her teeth. The cold cut her like a knife, the strong swell threatening to knock her off her feet as they waded deeper, but Theon kept a firm grip on her hand regardless. They stopped when the water reached their waists, and turned to one another, still holding hands, as Aeron Damphair approached, wading through the rough swell. The fading sunlight glinted off the knife in his hand. Sansa swallowed her fear, and kept her chin high and her face impassive.

The priest held out the knife. “Cut yourselves, and bind yourselves, blood with blood, bone with bone.”

Theon took it from him. Quickly, he gritted his teeth and cut his forearm in a long line, stopping just short of the veins in his wrist, not too deep, but deep enough. Red rivulets ran down his skin. He flipped the knife, and offered it, hilt first, to Sansa.

Her heart was pounding. She felt tears in her eyes, anticipating the pain, but she willed them away and took the knife from Theon. As she did, she glanced into his eyes, and saw reassurance there, and in his small smile. _I am a Stark, and stronger than I know._ She put the knife to her pale soft skin, and drew it down with a gasp.

Theon grabbed her arm at the elbow and pressed his wound to hers. She tightened her fingers on his elbow in a bone-crushing grasp as the salt from their skin wormed its way into her cut. They were both grimacing, but neither of them wept.

“Say the words, and make your vow to one another in the presence of the Drowned God.”

Theon looked into Sansa’s eyes, deep and blue as a sunlit sea.

“You are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone,” they said in unison, raising their voices above the crashing waves and screaming seabirds. “I give you my body, that we two might be one. I give you my spirit, until my life is done.” Their combined blood dripped and swirled into the water. “I vow to you the first cut of my meat, the first sip of my wine; from this day it shall be only your name I cry out in the night, and into your eyes that I smile each morning. I shall be a shield for your back as you are for mine; through this life, until we meet again under the waves.”

“Now give each other to the Drowned God,” Aeron commanded. “To prove your trust and love for each other, and your devotion to the god.”

Theon released Sansa’s arm, and placed a hand on each of her bare, shaking white shoulders. He squeezed them a little in reassurance, and thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her lips. She took a deep breath, and then Theon pushed her under the waves.

Of course, he wasn’t required to actually _drown_ her; the act was merely symbolic, to show trust in one’s partner, and faith that the Drowned God would save you. Sansa knew that, and yet as the icy water closed over her head, she felt a bone-deep terror she had never before experienced. The freezing water took her breath away, the wound on her arm excruciating as the salt water got into it, and she resisted the urge to struggle against Theon’s hands as he held her down for what seemed like an eternity. But just as her lungs were starting to burn, Sansa was lifted up, and she broke the water gasping and drenched, her shift soaked and clinging.

Theon tried not to look at the shape of her body as it was revealed through her wet shift. Her red hair was dark with the water, running off her in sheets. Her face was white, her freckles stark against it, her lips blood red. Theon could feel her trembling as she put her own hands on his shoulders, and pushed him down lightly, delicate as a kiss.

The seconds slid by, Sansa’s hands burning with cold as she held Theon down. She had no strength left, cold and water-logging and pain sapping it, so Theon was really holding himself beneath the sea more than anything. When he came back up with a gasp, he flipped his dark hair out of his eyes with a smooth motion, and Sansa found herself staring at his lean chest and the smattering of dark hair trailing down his stomach. Despite the cold, her cheeks burned.

“It is done,” Aeron Damphair said finally, openly bitter. “Theon of House Greyjoy and Sansa of House Stark are bound by blood and bone, salt and iron. No-one now may break them asunder; or face the Drowned God’s wrath.”

Theon helped Sansa stumble through the breaking waves and onto the beach. Asha and the Drumm girl waited with furs and blankets for Sansa, Tristifer Botley and Theon’s uncle Rodrik with a blanket for him, but he waved them off. He wrapped a blanket and a fur around Sansa’s shoulders himself, and then lifted her into his arms to take her up to the castle. Sansa clung to him like a little girl, shivering, and instinctively leaned her face into his neck.

They didn’t speak, but it was the closest they had been since Sansa could remember. Theon’s body was warm even despite the freezing water he had just been standing in, and Sansa curled into it as close as possible, living off that heat. She remembered the feeling of his bare arms around her as she sat in the steaming hot bath in the castle, the maids washing the salt from her hair and sewing and binding her cut arm. She found herself starving at the feast, cold and exhaustion trumping nerves, and she wolfed down fish stew and bread and butter with barely a thought as the Ironborn feasted and argued and jested all around her.

Theon’s arm throbbed, and his eyes stung from the smoke. He could still taste the dried sea salt on his lips. Sansa was dressed in black velvet now, with cloth-of-gold embroidery and lining; her jewels were black jet set in gold, and jet beads glinted in her hairnet, stark against the red. She seemed to have recovered well from the wedding ceremony, eating and drinking deep, and talking with Lord Rodrik, who seemed to have taken a liking to her.

“You must come to Ten Towers soon, my lady. I have a great wish to show you my library.”

“I would like that very much, my lord, very much indeed,” Sansa smiled as she mopped up the last of her stew with a heel of brown bread.

There was no bedding ceremony on the Iron Islands, at least not like the one on the mainland – for another man to touch a man’s wife was a grave insult, especially on their wedding night. As the torches burned down and the Ironborn steadily drunker, and rowdier, Theon knew the time was approaching. The knowledge filled him with anticipation, and the anticipation to guilt in its turn.

“Come!” Asha slammed her goblet down on the table with a cry, grinning. “The hour grows late, and I tire of these delays. Time to take your bride to bed, brother.” She grinned at Theon, who glowered back at her. _She enjoys this too much._

Sansa felt heat flood into her cheeks again, and she couldn’t look at Theon. She wiped her palms on her skirt in a nervous motion.

Theon stood abruptly. _Might as well get it over with._ He held out his hand to Sansa without looking at her, and felt, rather than saw, her take it. Her grasp was limp, her hand just brushing his, but Theon clasped it tighter. He pulled Sansa to face him, and drew her close.

“Do you trust me?” he murmured, ignoring the cries and the laughter of the men in the hall all around them.

Sansa looked up into his face, and nodded. “I do now.”

Theon bent to lift her into his arms once again. He carried her through the hall and to the stairs with the wedding guests following behind, making bawdy jests and laughing, but their voices were fading to silence. All he could hear was Sansa’s breath, loud in his ear. Theon had to knock the door open with his elbow, but he set Sansa on her feet to close the door, in Asha’s grinning face.

“Good luck, brother!” he heard her cry through the wood, and the chorus of laughter after it. His face burned.

When he turned back to her, Sansa was pulling her hair free of its net, and setting it down on the driftwood table. Her red hair spilled over shoulders like a flame, flickering in the candlelight.

“Could you -?” She motioned to her necklace, pulling her hair aside. Theon walked over to her in a stride and began to undo it, setting it on the table with the hairnet. Next came the laces of her gown. Her shoulders were moving up and down beneath the cloth.

Soon, too soon, the gown was loose enough for Sansa to pull it down and step out of it. Theon could see her trembling again, her body outlined by the fire through her thin white shift. His hands moved, shaking, to the straps of her shift, and then dropped to his sides.

“I can’t.”

Sansa turned to face him. Her face was clouded with confusion, and hurt.

“You don’t want me?”

Theon laughed shakily, and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t – I don’t _want_ you? Gods, Sansa, if you _knew_ how I want you –”

“Then – then why can’t you –” She was blushing so prettily, her eyes big and dark. Theon wanted to tear the shift from her body and kiss every inch of her alabaster skin, every sweet freckle.

“Because this isn’t right. It’s not _right,_ none of it, me and you, my family, this _castle –_ you should be in Highgarden or King’s Landing or the Eyrie, surrounded by beauty, not here in this cold damp hell, married to the son of a madwoman.” The words spilled out of him before he could prevent them, everything he’d wanted to say to her but simply couldn’t, before now. “My family is bitter and cruel, my people are harsh and suspicious of outsiders. If they try to overthrow me, as well they might, your life may be forfeit. I have _nothing_ to offer you, and you have _everything_ to offer me.” He sat on the end of the bed heavily, head in his hands, feeling the tears start to come.

He didn’t know how long he sat there and sobbed, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, before he felt small, gentle hands on his legs. He raised his head to see Sansa knelt before him, her eyes full of tears as well.

“I am stronger than you know,” she said softly. “I can survive this place. _We_ can survive it. We can make them all loyal to us, we can rule this place, _together. I_ can be your family.” She took his hand, and placed it on her breast, over her shift. He could feel her nipple stiffening beneath her hand. “We can make our own family.”

She stood then, and Theon shifted back onto the bed as she swung her legs around his hips and settled into his lap. His hands came up, unbidden, and brushed her shift from her shoulders and onto the floor as she kissed him, deep and sweet. He let her small hands tug his shirt over his head, and threw it aside. He tasted her mouth, so sweet and warm and soft, and pulled her deeper into his arms, lifting her and then laying her down on the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i tried to keep the focus tight on theon and sansa in this one, and next chapter take a closer look at ironborn politics. please let me know what you think, and i hope you enjoyed this chapter!


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